Tuesday, September 26, 2017

I absolutely LOVED receiving this super creative , vintage postal themed envelope and long, chatty letter. This was from a pal I met at the DC Postal Meet Up, organized by Global Pen Pal! Carrie is a great creative talent in the snail mail community. You can follow her work on Instagram:

Carriejojo212. She pumps out mail like no one's business, and ALL of it good mail!

Urgent!!! I needed to get something out to Carrie...and I decided to continue the vintage postal theme! I grabbed one of my vintage children's readers and was thrilled to find a picture of "Mr. Postman"!! Then I had to get out my post office stamps, and vintage stamps...and here you have it!

Friday, September 22, 2017

Michele always sends such wonderful mail to me...I needed to get busy. As cappuccinoandartjournal would tell us..."to get good mail, you gotta send good mail"! The pressure was on. The group from the " D.C. Postal Meet Up" are some serious mail artists. And here I am just doing my cutesie, crafty little thing over here in my corner of the world...but not these folks. They are into all their cool artistic techniques churning out mail nearly EVERY day. I'm slow folks. And the pressure was on. So this is what I came up with for Michele who sent me this GREAT mail pictured below...

Isn't her "stamp head" spot on? She is just oozing talent in very direction!! So much fun to receive such great mail! Thank you Michele. You can follow Michele on Instagram: mbcano1.

My son , Benji, went off to camp for a week this summer. I tried to find something that a teenage boy would not be too embarrassed to receive. I think I asked him weeks after he was home from camp (when I remembered to ask) if he ever received the letter... he said, "oh yeah, mom". Ha, I guess he appreciated it.

Have fun with your outgoing mail...put a smile on the postal carrier's face!

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

This nice big envelope arrived in the mail from Global Pen Pal. (And I have NO idea why her cute envelope is upside down in each picture!) She was so thoughtful to send me her nice de-stash of stationery.

For those of you not familiar...this stationery comes from the Victorian Trading Post.

I try to send "global" themed mail to Global Pen pal whenever I can.

And of course...a letter also! Speaking of which...If you have written me, I am attacking my pile as quickly as possible. More posts coming on YOUR beautiful snail mail!

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Everyone needs a crazy, wacky sister like mine. Oh, and to top it off, she is my identical TWIN sister. Of course that doesn't make me crazy or wacky....ha! This summer she came for a visit, taking the Amtrak down to my neck of the woods...Richmond , VA. When she came to town, I had already planned each and every day with something she hadn't already done in the Richmond and surrounding areas. We had a blast...and she was so sweet to send me a thank you card(s) with her very cool graphic art and watercolor.

Are you ready? Dare to open? I did.

First, THANKS!! For what?

Our first trip was downtown Richmond for an electric bike tour of historic Church Hill. We had a great tour guide and it was absolutely fantastic, everyone needs to check out their local e-bike tours!

One day was spent at the Jefferson for high tea! You can read all about it here:High Tea At The Jefferson . You will have to google why the alligator is in the picture. It figures into the history of the Jefferson Hotel.

And then the obligatory family time! And that is no small feat getting 10 children, 4 spouses, and 11 (now 12) grand kids all together! And just so you know, no babies were injured or harmed in the "baby lift" competitions. Brandon of course, rocked it!

We had so much fun researching the type of coconut (4 layer originally) cake that my grandmother used to make --circa 1920's?. We had narrowed it down to about 8 different recipes online, and finally think that we found THE ONE! Here is the recipe we settled on: Grandma's Coconut Cake. It was amazing....and so much fun to make with Pat. Thanks, Pat, for taking over the grating of the coconut!

Ah, then the interesting trip to Petersburg Virginia. Petersburg has a fantastic Civil War history and the city is amazing to visit...but be warned! Since the town has suffered almost total bankruptcy this past year , the tourism industry has been completely annihilated! First stop to the Visitor Center? Closed! Museums? Closed! The historic area is like a ghost town! One saving grace was our luncheon at the Dixie Restaurant! Great small town vibes, super friendly service, and we were told ahead of time about the heavenly "Spoon Bread" which was literally "to die for!" Great place, I highly recommend. Then it was on to the national battlefield to see the "Battle of the Crater"...my young uns that we took were not really impressed. I think you have to be an adult to appreciate this interesting bit of history. But, there too, the museum was CLOSED! Ugh, arrrrgh!

Richmond, Virginia is home to one of the only two, URBAN level 5 white water rafting in the country! So off we went to try our hand at it! Ha, ha, the pictures are ACCURATE! We lost Pat and my son Benji on the first rapid into the water! We had to go into rescue mode immediately! Thankfully we all made it through the rapids without loss of limb or life! It was an experience of a lifetime.

Hi Lydia! We had some swim time in the river which was great on the sweltering day we happened to be on the James River.

Such fun mail! Thank YOU Pat for keeping the memories alive, even more so than the photos that we took. What a great week, with this mail I will always look back with a smile.

I hope you have enjoyed this travelog , maybe you can go out and explore your own city too.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

I was in Dollar Tree today and I happened to see the boxes of calendars for sale. I like making envelopes from calendars so I took a closer look. try to find pictures that have a small to repeating design, so that it will be able to be used on an envelope. Florals usually work well, and I have made some with landscapes. The problem with land scape calendars is that they are hard to get the center of the picture where you want it. I I liked what I saw so I picked up two.

My smaller template for envelope making has been missing for some time, so I decided to make an envelope template out of this thin sheet of cardboard. I took an envelope size that I thought would work with the size of my calendar sheets, then opened it up to trace around the envelope.

Here is the finished template.

Don't forget to make the folding guide piece for your envelope. This is the template that is the size of the finished envelope. It will help you to make the folds where they need to be.

You can use a creasing tool to make sharper folds.

Then a little glue to glue the flaps in place.

First batch of envelopes are just about finished!

Since the envelopes are so flimsy, I decided to add a liner to the envelopes. Just use any paper that compliments the envelope's primary color. A.C. Moore carries the sturdier , thicker paper calendars for a dollar , but I haven't seen them out yet...check that store after the New Year.

Here is the second batch of calendar envelopes. I really like how this one turned out, a very nicely centered yellow rose!

All done! 24 envelopes made in just one sitting!

I thought I was done, until I noticed the back of the calendar pack. I thought maybe I could do something with the mini pictures of the calendar pages...

I'm rather undecided as what to do with them...book marks? Tags? What would you do with them?

Friday, August 25, 2017

I had a birthday this summer, and she sent me a large box filled with...

All sorts of goodies all wrapped up, so charmingly!

Look at all of this goodness! The English Tea Shop Tea was on my amazon wish list...how did she know? I love the Yankee candles, and her gorgeous photography that she makes into cards is just amazing. Thank you dear Sheryl! My birthdays are always so much better when something comes through the mail.